Brunori’s regeneration: “I feel lighter”
“Frenzy rhythms, mine,” jokes Dario Brunori. On February 14th, during the week of the Festival, “L’arancio delle noci” is released, an album which arrives 5 years after “Cip!”. “I was swallowed up by the need to publish, typical of today’s recording industry…”.
The album was presented today, in the first of the ritual pre-Sanremo conferences. More than a press conference, it was a one-man show: sitting in an armchair, Dario Brunori recounted, between uncompromising self-irony and more serious considerations, his “regeneration period”. He did so by commenting on a series of images, from the end of the 2022 tour (“just to show that I fill the arenas”) to that of the farm opened in Calabria (“you can also find it on Booking. If it doesn’t go well I can always go back there”), to the story of the relationship with Riccardo Sinigallia, producer and deus ex machina of the album.
A four-handed album
“I had a crisis and I recovered: it’s a script that always works, good for a title,” he smiles, but not too much. “The walnut tree” is the result of a long research effort even before writing, created together with Sinigallia. The result is a record that bears the name of Brunori but is a collaborative effort: “He took care of the artistic production as if it were his own record, so much so that talking only about production, honestly, seems reductive to me,” he explains.
“We had met around concerts where we were both on the bill and we liked each other.
The idea of collaborating has always been there. I thought that Riccardo was the right person because I was in a phase where I had a great desire to regenerate and I know that the theme of regeneration is very dear to him. I also knew he was the right person because he could help me in areas not only related to sound and artistic production understood as sound, but also as an author and songwriter. Beyond the concrete work on the songs, we had very long chats that were psychoanalytic sessions, which gave shape to the structure of the album. Riccardo joined me in my company: our first meetings seemed like those of a TV series,” he smiles.
A work of chiseling and subtraction, he explains: “Of the many songs that came out, we chose ten, the ones that seemed most solid and exciting to us and which, put together, form a coherent story. Three of these are recordings made by me on my cell phone a few minutes after composing, with all the errors, stumbles, hesitations, smiles, gasps and amazement involved. Because this is what I wanted to talk about, because this is what I wanted to sing about.”
Sanremo
Brunori also jokes and reflects on Sanremo, where he will be competing with the song that gives the album its title: “It’s a tree that really exists, it’s in front of my house, in particular it’s in front of the window of the studio where I compose and record . I’ve been convinced for years that it’s him who suggests the songs to me. I say to my detractors: if you want me to stop writing songs, come and cut down this tree that is under my house.”
In the conference, Brunori shows the classic reaction video to the announcement of his participation on TV and a photo with the Festival prize: “I’ll tell you that I’ve already won”, he explains. The photo was taken in 2019, when he was a guest of the Zen Circus (“I found the trophy on the bar counter and thought: when will I get to hold it again?”).
Then, more seriously, he tells the song, dedicated to his daughter, born in this period.
“I tried not to do the classic pimp song as a father, but also telling the lights and shadows of fatherhood. I am aware of going to a place where many people don’t know me and I go in my most classic singer-songwriter guise, with a song that I can sing with my head held high, following the advice of Samuele Bersani, who once told me: go with a song that convinces you, otherwise you won’t come out alive.”.
He goes back to joking when the inevitable question arrives about Tony Effe’s lyrics (never named, by the way): “I agree with him, I hope for a featuring.” Then, more seriously: “These things open up a debate. They shouldn’t be underestimated, but it seems to me that my grandchildren who listen to those songs experience them as fiction. I also wrote a song called ‘Gunshot’…”
The tour (and the Circus Maximus with orchestra”
In addition to the already announced tour of the arenas, Brunori has announced a date with an orchestra at the Circus Maximus on June 18th. “It will be an old-fashioned live show. I’m not interested in repeating the album exactly, I’m lucky enough to play with a band I’ve worked with for years and I like the idea that each concert can be different from the next.”
This is the tracklist of the album:
1. So as not to lose us
2. The nut tree
3. The guillotine
4. Life as it is
5. Catastrophic afternoons
6. Tyson’s bite
7. Fin’ara luna
8. More water than fire
9. Black Moon
10. Security guard
